Frozen in Time
by LittlePinkFaerie
Summary: Work in Progress
1. Chapter 1

Frozen in Time

Summary: A work in progress, and my first piece of CSI fanfic. No CSI in this chapter, this is just the introduction.

Authors Note: I do not own CSI or any of the CSI characters. The rest are pure invention of my mind.

Prologue

It had been a freezing cold winter so far that year. The girl trudging through the knee deep snow pulled her scarf tighter around her neck, and stuffed into further into the neck opening of her coat. The sharp north wind howled around her, whipping up flakes of falling snow, hundreds of sharp icy shards pricking at her delicate exposed skin. The girl continued onwards, half stumbling through the snow, trying to run.

Her breath came in sharp ragged spurts, the cold burning at her chapped lips and freezing her chest. She puffed out white clouds of moist air, indistinguishable from the massive white flurry around her. Still she carried on, falling and picking herself up, scrambling through drifts of pure white coldness.

She had to have hope, she kept telling herself. She had to keep going, if she could just have the strength to reach the town. She could get help. She could help the others. This thought spurred her on. It was difficult though; the falling snow was so dense, the fallen snow so thick, and it was so very cold. She stumbled again, and landed facedown. "Get up, you must go on" she heard herself say, and attempted to push herself up. Tired and alone she began to cry from the effort, and her weakness.

Something howled in the distance and she knew her time was up. She had heard dogs at the farm, she knew He kept them for his games. He kept them hungry, and trained them to hunt. Oh God no! She thought, and with one last push she scrambled to her feet, and began to run again.

In the distance she saw a glimpse of hope, a light shining like a beacon. She knew it was the town, another 15 minutes and she would be safe. She could save the others! She could see a fence about 20 feet in front of her through the whirling snowfall. If she guessed correctly, then this was the boundary for her parents land and she was nearly home. She urged her feet to keep moving, thrusting them down through the ever-increasing snowdrifts. She pushed her right foot down, and immediately felt teeth snap onto her calf. She fell forwards again and turned to look behind her. For a moment she expected to see one of His dogs with its jaws clamped onto her flesh. She cried out form the pain when she tried to move her leg up. Whimpering she dug at the snow to find the source of her pain. Her numbed fingers unearthed a jaw trap, its rusted fangs spearing her shin. She tried to force the traps jaws apart, but only succeeding in moving it a centimetre before it snapped shut on her leg again. She cried out and heard the dogs howling, closer now.

She tried again to release the trap, but the snow was too compacted around it to open it. She dug further around the trap to free it, hoping she could try again. The pain was excruciating and she felt sick from the effort. As she dug she felt something hard brush against her hand. She saw something pink-blue coloured jutting out from the snow she had been digging at. It looked like a fingertip. Despite the pain she frantically scrapped at the snow around the fingertip to expose more. She felt her heart rate increase long with the nausea, as she uncovered a whole hand. The hand rolled forward, not attached as she had expected, but free from its body. She panicked and tossed it away from her onto the snow. She stared at the lone hand, its stump ragged, the exposed wrist bones and muscle poking out from the skin. It was then with a heavy sickness in her stomach, that she realised why they had never been saved before. Why she would never have saved anyone tonight. The hand had short nails painted in pale pink nail polish, and wore a small gold ring. She could remember her friend Mary having a ring like that and pink nail polish. Mary had been let go He said. Mary had been a good girl. Like she had been a good girl. She screamed as it dawned on her that He had never meant her to make it home. He just let them go, and let the dogs chase them. Now she knew she he kept them hungry. It was just a game to him. She could feel herself drifting away, the cold numbing her entire body. She felt dizzy, her heart rate weakening. She knew she was starting to suffer from hypothermia, but she no longer cared. She closed her eyes and whispered a prayer that the next girl would be luckier. The pain from the trap, and the increasing loss of blood combined with the effects of the coldness, and the girl slipped into unconsciousness.

The snow continued to fall as the dogs made their way across the snow towards the cooling body. They dug up the fresh snow covering their meal, and began to feast….


	2. Chapter 2

_Thanks for the reviews so far, it's always nice to be appreciated. I just hope I can maintain the standard :S_

_A/N As before the characters from CSI don't belong to me, except the ones that I invent myself, and the places don't exist except in my head._

**Chapter One**

It had finally stopped snowing Sara Sidle noted, as she switched off the windscreen wipers. It annoyed her having the wipers switched on, she didn't like distractions whilst she was driving. It was treacherous enough in these conditions without worsening the situation. It puzzled her how a city so used to every extreme that could be thrown at it, was somewhat unprepared for a sudden, but not completely rare snowstorm. Thank goodness for the ABS and traction control on her SUV she thought as she guided the vehicle through the slow moving streets of Las Vegas. Eventually after what had seemed like an hour she drove into the parking lot of the Las Vegas Crime Lab. The sky was darker when she exited the car and made her way across the fresh snow on the lot surface. Some children were playing on the sidewalk, scrapping up snow and making balls. Sara stopped to watch for a moment and smiled.

"Hey!" She cried out feeling something hit the side of her coat. Instinctively crouching down and reaching for her weapon, she spun around, pointing the weapon, to see Nick Stokes grinning at her, holding another ball of snow in his hand.

"Nick!" she said in exasperation. "Don't even think about it!" She warned, re-holstering the gun, and standing up.

"Too late," said Nick, as he threw the snowball at her. Sara dodged out of the way, and made a run for the building. "Ah come on Sar, come and play" Nick cajoled her.

"I'll send Warrick out," Sara replied and banging the snow off from her boots entered the warmth and sanctuary of the Crime Lab.

Gil Grissom was sat at his desk with his fingers laced together, his chin resting atop his hands. He was deep in thought, pondering the package that sat before him. It had arrived earlier that afternoon, and had been waiting at reception for him to collect when he had arrived at the Lab that afternoon. The last time an unexplained package had turned up it had been a head. The box was quite battered, and showed signs of cold and dampness, which could have just meant the box had been sat on the snow outside for a while, but considering otherwise Grissom picked up the package and walked down the morgue with it.

"Hey Gris," Grissom heard Sara call from the locker room as he walked by. He stopped, and walked back to the doorway.

"Hey, he replied.

"What've you got there?" Sara asked, indicating the package Grissom was holding.

"I don't know. It arrived sometime this after-noon; I was taking it down to Doc Robbins, to take a look at, you know just in case. Want to come along?"

"Sure," Sara nodded, hanging up her coat in her locker. She shut the locker and followed Grissom out of the locker room and into the corridor.

"Hey Doc. Come and take a look at this." Grissom called as he pushed through the door into the morgue. He dropped the cardboard package onto the metal workbench.

"What have you got?" Dr Albert Robbins approached the workbench

"A package was left for me at reception today. I'm afraid it might be perishable. So… I've brought it down here."

"This package is postmarked Lincoln County. Is there a return address?" Doc Robbins asked pulling on a pair of latex gloves and picking up a scalpel from the bench.

"Not on the outside of the box." Grissom replied.

Doc Robbins pulled the box towards him, and deftly cut through the layers of brown tape sealing the package. He bent back the cardboard flaps, and peered inside the box.

"Well at first glance there appears to be two separate plastic bags." He said gingerly lifting out the smaller of the bags. "Looks like a piece of paper inside, the bag is cold to the touch but the paper looks otherwise okay."

"What's in the other bag?" Grissom asked.

Doc Robbins reached inside. He placed the second and larger of the bags onto the bench.

"Is that what I think it is?" Sara said, looking closer at the bag.

"Yes, I'm afraid it does appear to be a hand in a bag of water," Doc Robbins replied. "Do you want me to process it?"

"Please," said Grissom. "Can you open the other bag first though."

Doc Robbins sliced open the second bag, and extracted the paper. "It's a folded note," he remarked unfolding it. "As I suspected there is no visible water damage. Who ever packed this up, whilst not brilliantly, managed to keep both contents separate."

Sara took a look at the note. "It's addressed to you Grissom," she said. "The hand has definitely come from Lincoln County, there is an address on the note. 2144 West, Hope Springs, Lincoln County. That's out on Highway 93 near Alamo."

Sara read the note out aloud. "_Dear Mr Grissom, I know this will seem odd but I didn't know where else to turn, my daughter Kim and her best friend Mary are missing and have been for nearly nine months now. I reported them missing to the police here in Hope Springs but they refused to take me seriously. They said that she had probably run away to Vegas or California or something. You see a lot of teenagers leave here, so it might not seem too unusual. When I was walking the other day, I found the hand enclosed in the bag. I packed it in ice to help preserve it. I found it in the snow, but I don't know how long it had been there. The reason I am sending this to you instead of going to the local police is because I know this hand is Mary's. Her late mother was a good friend of mine, and I recognise the ring being worn. It belonged to Mary's mother and was hand made, it is unique. Too many kids have been going missing from our town, and I don't trust the police here anymore. My daughter was my life, and I need to find her, although I fear it may already be too late. Please help me, Alice Walker."_

Sara looked at Grissom wide-eyed. "Oh my God," she exclaimed.

"What can you tell us about the hand Doc?" Grissom asked.

Doc Robbins had removed the hand from its packaging, and placed it on the bench.

"Well males usually have a ring finger of equal or greater length than the index finger. Females tend to have index fingers of equal or greater length than the finger. They also tend to have shorter little fingers too. Judging by the condition of the nails, and the pink polish, I hazard a guess that this hand is from a young female, but I'll take a tissue sample and send it to DNA to be sure."

"Thanks Doc. You know there has been a link between differences in second and fourth finger length and homosexuality." Grissom remarked.

"Really!" Doc Robbins replied. "Last thing I heard about hands and finger length was you know what they say about it."

"What's that?" Sara asked, raising her eyebrows, and smiling sweetly at Grissom.

"Big gloves!"


End file.
